BBC -Another Sucker for
PR Spoof?

On October 15th,
BBC Online carried a story on the planned launch by Barclays
Stockbrokers of an Internet trading service in the UK. The story
was titled Share dealing: an Online
revolutionand carried the following paragraph:

Next
week Barclays Stockbrokers, the UK's largest share
broker, plans to make the first ever "real
time" share trade in Europe over the Internet.

On the day of publication, we
contacted the BBC and advised them that Swedish brokers had been
trading on the Internet since 1996 and we subsequently forwarded
an e-mail message from NordNet, one of Stockholm's leading Internet brokers confirming
their range of real time services. We also informed the BBC that
Germany's biggest direct bank Bank 24 , had a broking service comparable with E*Trade, in the US.

On the afternoon of Tuesday
October 20th, the BBC substituted 'the United Kingdom' for
'Europe' in its story and stated that it was unable to confirm
whether the incorrect information had been supplied by Barclays
or the journalist who had written the story, had made a mistake
as he was then on holidays.